The Pentecostal teaching about a baptism with the Holy Spirit

Mykhaylo Mokiyenko

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the Pentecostal teaching about the baptism with the Holy Spirit as an important theological and hermeneutical problem. Christian theology distinguishes baptism as one of the main problems requiring a thorough theological and hermeneutic study. From the very beginning of the modern Pentecostal movement, his representatives emphasized that all Christians may and need experience of baptism with the Holy Spirit which differs from the experience of the birth from above and follows Him. Such an understanding of the sequence or step by step naturally follows from the belief that the presenting of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, described by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles (second chapter), as sources of power for effective testimony, and not as a condition of the New Testament being. It is proved that, despite the lack of a single theological view of the charismatic component in Luke's pneumatology, Pentecostal theologians consolidate the conviction that those who received baptism in the Holy Spirit received power. A conclusion based on the hermeneutic analysis was made that, according to God's plan, the baptorus was to participate in the universal evangelical mission of the Christian Church (Acts 1: 8). With this power came the courage in the testimony (Acts 4:31), the guidance in the missions performed (Acts 16: 6-10), and in some cases (despite the disagreement of some theologians) the ability to heal diseases and banish demons and even the right to judge (Acts 13: 9-11). It was analyzed that Pentecostal theology did not differentiate the experience of baptism with the Holy Spirit from conversion, did not confirm the normative value of the New Testament narratives, allowing Luke's texts to exist independently and at the same time to complement the pneumatology of Paul and John, testifying the diversity of the work of the Holy Spirit in people and communities.

Keywords

a baptism with the Holy Spirit; Pentecostal teaching; evangelical Hermeneutics; modern evangelical theology